Method and device for classifying media access control address based on ethernet ring network

Abstract

The present invention provides a method for classifying media access control (MAC) address based on an Ethernet ring network, and the method comprises: when the Ethernet ring network is carrying out initialization, a node of the ring classifies the MAC address corresponding to a non-ring port in its own forward database (FDB) into a MAC address group, and takes its own MAC address as the index of the MAC address group. A node of the ring broadcasts a message carrying the MAC address group indexed by its own MAC address in the Ethernet ring network; the node of the ring receiving the message completes the classification of the MAC address corresponding to the ring port in its own FDB by adding the MAC address group carried by the message into its own FDB. The present invention also provides a device for classifying media access control (MAC) address based on Ethernet ring network. With the method and device of the present invention, the MAC address refreshing time of a node of the ring is shortened, and the convergence speed of protection switching is improved.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application is the U.S. national phase of PCT Appln. No. PCT / CN2009 / 073760 filed Sep. 4, 2009 which claims priority to Chinese application 200910079943.7 filed Mar. 13, 2009, now issued as Chinese Patent No. 101834772 granted Jun. 11, 2013, the disclosures of which are incorporated in their entirety by reference herein.TECHNICAL FIELD[0002]This invention relates to Ethernet ring network protection technology, and more especially, to a method and device for classifying media access control (MAC) address based on the Ethernet ring network.BACKGROUND OF THE RELATED ART[0003]To date, metropolitan networks and enterprise networks widely use the Ethernet ring structure to improve the reliability of the network, when a certain link on the ring is disconnected, it might recover the communication between nodes in ring network by immediately activating a backup link.[0004]FIG. 1 shows a topology diagram of communication path when the link in an...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides a method and device for classification and refreshing of MAC addresses in an Ethernet ring network. This helps to reduce the time required for matching MAC addresses and improves the speed of protection switching. Additionally, the invention divides the refreshing message into periodic and instant messages, with the latter only being used for changes in MAC address information. This reduces network traffic and burden.

Problems solved by technology

2, after each node of the ring receives the protocol message, it needs to extract the DAL from the protocol message and matches the DAL with the MAC addresses corresponding to the port receiving the protocol message in its own FDB, and if the DAL carries a large number of MAC addresses, the matching time will be very long, which will result in a low MAC address refreshing rate of each node of the ring, thus significantly affect the convergence speed of the Ethernet ring network protection switching.

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